Platinum-Coordinated Engineered Nanoreactors with O₂ Self-Amplificationand On-Demand Cascade Chemo-Drug Synthesis for...

How to efficiently synthesize toxic chemo-drugs in the hypoxia tumor microenvironment still faces a huge challenge. Herein, we have tailored engineered vehicle-free nanoreactors by coordination-driven co-assembly of photosensitizer indocyanine green (ICG), transition metal platinum (Pt), and nontoxic 1,5-dihydroxynaphthalene (DHN) to self-amplify O₂ and cascade chemo-drug synthesis in tumor cells for self-reinforcing hypoxic oncotherapy. Once vehicle-free nanoreactors are internalized into tumor cells, they show a serious instability that results in rapid disassembly and on-demand drug release under the stimuli of acidic lysosome and laser radiation. Notably, the released Pt can efficiently decompose the endogenous hydrogen peroxide (H₂O₂) into O₂ to alleviate tumor hypoxia, which is conducive to enhancing the photodynamic therapy (PDT) efficiency of the released ICG. Complementarily, a large amount of the ¹O₂ generated by PDT can efficiently oxidize the released nontoxic DHN into the highly toxic chemo-drug juglone. Therefore, such vehicle-free nanoreactors can achieve intracellular on-demand cascade chemo-drug synthesis and self-reinforce photo-chemotherapeutic efficacy on the hypoxic tumor. On the whole, such a simple, flexible, efficient, and nontoxic therapeutic strategy will broaden the study of on-demand chemo-drug synthesis and hypoxic oncotherapy.